


Oh Lord, Heal this Book

by eidolon



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 15:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20010274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eidolon/pseuds/eidolon
Summary: Aziraphale's book has a tragic accident during a bubble bath.





	Oh Lord, Heal this Book

Aziraphale had been drinking steadily for several hours, if the state of the living room when Crowley got home was any indication. He was singing a funeral dirge. Very off-key and greatly obscured by the occasional inelegant sniffle. Crowley hung up his keys and put his phone on the charger, then wandered over with his hands in his pockets to survey the disaster.

In the centre of the coffee table, amid the glasses and bottles, a damp book had been shrouded with a pillow case. Flowers had been removed from a vase and heaped on it.

“So… what happened?” Crowley finally asked, when it didn’t seem like the song was going to end any time soon.

“I killed it!” Aziraphale wailed, weeping, wearing only part of a towel (he was sat on the rest). “It was so young! It had so much to live for! A… a sen-seneseles-sensu… Tragic!”

“Did you drop it in the bath?”

“I’M A MURDERER!”

“You dropped it in the bath.”

Crowley moved the flowers while Aziraphale hiccuped and hyperventilated, and shifted things around on the table so that he could pick up the book and its shroud. 

“Are–are you going to bury it? In the garden? Under… under the rose bush. It would have liked that.“

"In an exceedingly beautiful and moving ceremony, I promise. You stay there on the sofa." 

Crowley picked up the blanket that was normally folded over the back of the sofa and draped it over Aziraphale’s shoulders, reasoning that he might be cold when he stopped being too drunk to notice. Then, he threaded his way into the kitchen, removed the pillowcase, and put the book in a colander in the sink. He also took off his glasses and rubbed his face. 

“Oh lord, heal this book,” he sighed, and extended a hand over the sink. The water rapidly drained from the book and the pages straightened again, becoming as flat and smooth as they had been before their dip. It still smelled like Aziraphale’s bubble bath, but he didn’t expect that to matter all that much.

“Look,” he said grandly, returning to the living room and the still sniffling angel, “a miracle has taken place! Raised from the dead! It didn’t even take three days this time.” 

Aziraphale lunged towards it but Crowley held it up over his head. “Ah-ah, you’ll just cry on it and get it wet again. Put the alcohol back where you found it and scrape yourself together first.”

Sobering up abruptly felt like having an intense hangover compressed into a bomb that detonated just inside your brain. It didn’t help that the amount of alcohol required to get angels and demons properly drunk would kill a human five times over. Crowley tucked the book under his arm and went back into the kitchen long enough to put the kettle on. Unhappy sounds emanated from the living room.

He brought Aziraphale a large mug of tea and a hand towel to mop his face with. Eventually, Aziraphale ran his hands through his hair and looked up. Crowley held the book out to him. He took it after wiping his hands again, and looked at it silently for so long that Crowley started to worry that he had misjudged the situation somehow. Perhaps he shouldn’t have joked about the miracle.

At length, turning the book in his hands, Aziraphale quietly said, “You are the kindest person I have ever known. Don’t argue. You are.”

“I’m. Anyone would. Wouldn’t they?” Crowley said, awkward. 

“No, I don’t think so. They would say I was being silly and laugh. You never do, even when I _am_ being silly. You fixed my coat, you healed the dove*, you do all of these little things, which I could have done myself but didn’t think to because I was too upset.”  
  
“Well. Yes. That’s the point, isn’t it? People have to look after one another, don’t they? ' _It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner,_ ' and all of that.”

Aziraphale laid the book very carefully on the arm of the sofa, adjusted the blanket around his shoulders, and picked up his tea. He stirred it for a moment, still looking down. “Do… do you think she meant to? Us? Together?”

Crowley softened, losing some of his wretched tension. “If she ever did love us, I suppose she must have, angel.”

**Author's Note:**

> The quote is from Genesis 2:18 NRSV.
> 
> Crowley revives the dove in the book. I felt like it was an important character moment.


End file.
